Interesting info about birth asphyxia and autism

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Interesting.

The idea that autism results from trauma immediately before or during birth dates back to at least 1959, but I hadn't heard it tied to cord clamping before.

When I was taking a childbirth class, in preparation for the arrival of my first kid, we were informed that cord clamping was automatically going to be done unless we arranged otherwise with the doctor beforehand. That was in 1980. I don't know how long it had been the standard practice before that, but it is definitely not something that started in the last 10-20 years.

All 3 of my kids had delayed cord clamping. 1 has been diagnosed w/ AS, 1 is too young to be diagnosed, but we think he has it, and the other is obviously NT (he's 3, but we can tell.) My oldest, diagnosed son, has the least traumatic birth. Middle son, it was traumatic for me, not so much him, although he did suffer side effects from the drugs they gave me. He's the NT one. Last son was born at home, but he did have the cord around his neck a few times, and had to have oxygen for a few minutes after birth. Not cord related, but there was surely a short time of oxygen deprivation there. I pushed him out in 2 pushes, so it wasn't long however. I wouldn't have had a caesarean in the hospital.

I was born a month late and pulled out with forceps and I can even feel a little dent on my forehead sorta the shape of a long triangle, but I don't know if that is what caused it...

I have an ex-boyfriend who although is nOT normal....(he has narcisistic personality disorder and is an alcoholic)....is not autistic...and he was born on Friday, June 13th 1975 backwards with umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.....completely blue...his mom and the doctors thought he was a goner..though...since he likes to exaggerate everything and I have heard this story a billion times and it gets more exaggerated with each telling....but I dont have any reason not to believe the basic facts.

It depends on the part of the brain which was damaged. My cousin was born with the cord wrapped around her neck, and she doesn't have any motor problems, but she is definitely "slow". When I tried to explain the rules of "Taboo" to her when I was a kid (she was an adult), she totally didn't understand them.

Any kind of damage to the brain from before birth through the early childhood years can cause cerebral palsy- including head trauma and infection.

The correct term is "brain injury," which can manifest itself in a number of ways, ranging from coma to minor learning disabilities. Cerebral palsy is probably the most common complication.

My friend mentioned above who suffered from birth asphyxia(sp? )...has no motor delays to speak of and is more or less of above average intelligence...
is kinda like me in that he acts very young for his age (he is my age), (and as a result, dates much younger girls )
(he is also left-handed..(like me)though I have read thories of left-handedness being sometimes brought on by pre-birth brain injury, I don't buy it)
He is also severely dyslexic....but has a photographic memory..it used to be that he could hear a phone number once and memorise it...but I think drug and alcohol use have degenerated that skill over time....He is also multi-lingual..speaks (though he may exaggerate regarding his skill..)several different dialects of Spanish and some French and Protugese...plays several musical instruments..(that I can attest to because I have worked with him musically for years)

But he is also very impulsive...prone to drug use...charismatic to people who don't know any better...and has a tendancy to talk and talk and talk repeating himself over and over again to anyone who will listen...all about himself..He has different facets of his personality that will manifest themselves at different times..ranging from intelligent, level headed and helpful, to chaotic nuisance madman..though not prone to violence could find himself in toruble if the wrong people get tired of his crap....he is also very prone to lying with great ease...(helpful in juggling all his dumb girlfriends)
and he displays alot of classic symptoms of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissist ... y_disorder

I was in distress too, C Section.

my lil bro's umbilical chord was wrapped around his neck... if my mom hadn't have opted to just have a C-section (cause she had a C-section with me cause i was breach)... then he would have hung himself during birthing

Gee, I guess a LOT of people had umbilical strangulation! MY generation generally got a kick out of helping out "adults" with tuning, setting clocks, opening "child proof" containers, etc.... Who thought up the "child proof" containers anyway????? I guess they PROVED the intelligence of the CHILDren? Somehow, I think everyone else assumed the term meant something else!

As for taboo, did she speak english? Did you explain right? As I recall, the idea is that it is like password(Give intonation and words that don't follow patterns that naturally lead the person to the word.), except you are given a list of words that you are ALSO NOT to use(English slang would be to say they are taboo).

Steve

Yeah, she speaks English. We're all native English speakers. We were all trying to explain the rules to her, including my other cousin, who was also an adult. And it's not like Taboo is the only thing she doesn't get. My mom says that she has difficulty grasping stuff like that because of the period of anoxia during birth. I doubt that she was ever tested for anything like a learning disability or cognitive delay though, because my aunt isn't the sort of person who would have bothered, plus my cousin was a kid in Missouri in the sixties and seventies, so I doubt the local schools were doing too much of that sort of testing back then.

Yeah, those are the rules. You are given a word, and have to get people to guess it without using the words on the card.

It's true that left-handedness is often associated with brain injury. When there is a family history of lefthandedness, and the person has some ability with their right hand (between left-handed and ambidextrous), it is probably genetic. When the person is very strongly left-handed however and there is no family history, the left-handedness might be the result of some small insult to the brain. A lot of autistics, people with developmental delays, and people with learning disabilities are left-handed.
I know someone who is incredibly smart, who you'd never think would have had anything happen to her brain, but she is strongly left-handed and she is also unable to cross mid-line (which really indicates that there is some subtle neurological thing going on), so there probably was some sort of small insult at one point.

My son, now 20 months old, experienced distress while being born. The doctor threatened a c-section, medical personnel rushed into the room to assist, and I was given extra oxygen. I continued to labor and he was born normally, but my midwife was not very capable and several things went wrong during labor. He does not have a diagnosis as of yet, but he displays some symptoms of HFA or AS.

I, on the other hand, was born normally during a relatively easy and natural childbirth. I have some AS tendencies but nothing so extreme as to ever have worried anyone.

If my son's rough birth really did have a hand in the way he behaves today, I am certain that this is not the only factor at play. There are so many quirky, analytical thinkers in our family, the genetic link is pretty clear.

No, but the doctor had to use a kind of "special pincers" (sorry but I don't know the name ), my head was stuck and he spinned my head for helping me.